QoS routing in ad hoc wireless networks

The emergence of nomadic applications have generated much interest in wireless network infrastructures that support real-time communications. We propose a bandwidth routing protocol for quality-of-service (QoS) support in a multihop mobile network. The QoS routing feature is important for a mobile network to interconnect wired networks with QoS support (e.g., ATM, Internet, etc.). The QoS routing protocol can also work in a stand-alone multihop mobile network for real-time applications. This QoS routing protocol contains end-to-end bandwidth calculation and bandwidth allocation. Under such a routing protocol, the source (or the ATM gateway) is informed of the bandwidth and QoS available to any destination in the mobile network. This knowledge enables the establishment of QoS connections within the mobile network and the efficient support of real-time applications. In addition, it enables more efficient call admission control. In the case of ATM interconnection, the bandwidth information can be used to carry out intelligent handoff between ATM gateways and/or to extend the ATM virtual circuit (VC) service to the mobile network with possible renegotiation of QoS parameters at the gateway. We examine the system performance in various QoS traffic flows and mobility environments via simulation. Simulation results suggest distinct performance advantages of our protocol that calculates the bandwidth information. It is particularly useful in call admission control. Furthermore, “standby” routing enhances the performance in the mobile environment. Simulation experiments show this improvement     

Call Level QoS Performance under Variable User Mobilities in Wireless Networks

The concept of adaptive admission control in cellular wireless networks ensures quality of service by reserving bandwidth for handoff calls. It is equally important in current second generation wireless systems as well as in the future IMT-2000 and UMTS systems. In order to ensure bounded call level QoS we propose to track the changes of the handoff call arrival rate and integrate this information in the admission algorithm. However, the handoff call arrival rate can vary when the new call arrival rate and/or user mobility vary. In our previous work we have analysed bandwidth reservation techniques needed to maintain a stable call level QoS when new call arrival rate is changing in a group, or groups, of wireless cells. This paper analyses bandwidth reservation techniques that are adaptive to the user mobility as well as to the changing new call arrival rate, and which can ensure stable call level QoS over a range of user mobilities. We also propose the technique to derive bandwidth reservation policy when the QoS characteristics over a range of user mobilities are given.     

Enabling seamless multimedia wireless access through QoS‐based bandwidth adaptation

Effective support of real‐time multimedia applications in wireless access networks, viz. cellular networks and wireless LANs, requires a dynamic bandwidth adaptation framework where the bandwidth of an ongoing call is continuously monitored and adjusted. Since bandwidth is a scarce resource in wireless networking, it needs to be carefully allocated amidst competing connections with different Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. In this paper, we propose a new framework called QoS‐adaptive multimedia wireless access (QoS‐AMWA) for supporting heterogeneous traffic with different QoS requirements in wireless cellular networks. The QoS‐AMWA framework combines the following components: (i) a threshold‐based bandwidth allocation policy that gives priority to handoff calls over new calls and prioritizes between different classes of handoff calls by assigning a threshold to each class, (ii) an efficient threshold‐type connection admission control algorithm, and (iii) a bandwidth adaptation algorithm that dynamically adjusts the bandwidth of an ongoing multimedia call to minimize the number of calls receiving lower bandwidth than the requested. The framework can be modeled as a multi‐dimensional Markov chain, and therefore, a product‐form solution is provided. The QoS metrics—new call blocking probability (NCBP), handoff call dropping probability (HCDB), and degradation probability (DP)—are derived. The analytical results are supported by simulation and show that this work improves the service quality by minimizing the handoff call dropping probability and maintaining the bandwidth utilization efficiently. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

End-to-End Adaptive QoS Provisioning over GPRS Wireless Mobile Network

The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) offers performance guaranteed packet data services to mobile users over wireless frequency-division duplex links with time division multiple access, and core packet data networks. This paper presents a dynamic adaptive guaranteed Quality-of-Service (QoS) provisioning scheme over GPRS wireless mobile links by proposing a guaranteed QoS media access control (GQ-MAC) protocol and an accompanying adaptive prioritized-handoff call admission control (AP-CAC) protocol to maintain GPRS QoS guarantees under the effect of mobile handoffs. The GQ-MAC protocol supports bounded channel access delay for delay-sensitive traffic, bounded packet loss probability for loss-sensitive traffic, and dynamic adaptive resource allocation for bursty traffic with peak bandwidth allocation adapted to the current queue length. The AP-CAC protocol provides dynamic adaptive prioritized admission by differentiating handoff requests with higher admission priorities over new calls via a dynamic multiple guard channels scheme, which dynamically adapts the capacity reserved for dealing with handoff requests based on the current traffic conditions in the neighboring radio cells. Integrated services (IntServ) QoS provisioning over the IP/ATM-based GPRS core network is realized over a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) architecture, and mobility is supported over the core network via a novel mobile label-switching tree (MLST) architecture. End-to-end QoS provisioning over the GPRS wireless mobile network is realized by mapping between the IntServ and GPRS QoS requirements, and by extending the AP-CAC protocol from the wireless medium to the core network to provide a unified end-to-end admission control with dynamic adaptive admission priorities.     

QoS multicast routing by using multiple paths/trees in wireless ad hoc networks

In this paper, we investigate the issues of QoS multicast routing in wireless ad hoc networks. Due to limited bandwidth of a wireless node, a QoS multicast call could often be blocked if there does not exist a single multicast tree that has the requested bandwidth, even though there is enough bandwidth in the system to support the call. In this paper, we propose a new multicast routing scheme by using multiple paths or multiple trees to meet the bandwidth requirement of a call. Three multicast routing strategies are studied, SPT (shortest path tree) based multiple-paths (SPTM), least cost tree based multiple-paths (LCTM) and multiple least cost trees (MLCT). The final routing tree(s) can meet the user’s QoS requirements such that the delay from the source to any destination node shall not exceed the required bound and the aggregate bandwidth of the paths or trees shall meet the bandwidth requirement of the call. Extensive simulations have been conducted to evaluate the performance of our three multicast routing strategies. The simulation results show that the new scheme improves the call success ratio and makes a better use of network resources.     

Q-Win – A New Admission and Handoff Management Scheme for Multimedia LEO Satellite Networks

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks are deployed as an enhancement to terrestrial wireless networks in order to provide broadband services to users regardless of their location. In addition to global coverage, these satellite systems support communications with hand-held devices and offer low cost-per-minute access cost, making them promising platform for Personal Communication Services (PCS). LEO satellites are expected to support multimedia traffic and to provide their users with the negotiated Quality of Service (QoS). However, the limited bandwidth of the satellite channel, satellite rotation around the Earth and mobility of end-users makes QoS provisioning and mobility management a challenging task. One important mobility problem is the intra-satellite handoff management. The main contribution of this work is to propose Q-Win, a novel call admission and handoff management scheme for LEO satellite networks. A key ingredient in our scheme is a companion predictive bandwidth allocation strategy that exploits the topology of the network and contributes to maintaining high bandwidth utilization. Our bandwidth allocation scheme is specifically tailored to meet the QoS needs of multimedia connections. The performance of Q-Win is compared to that of two recent schemes proposed in the literature. Simulation results show that our scheme offers low call dropping probability, providing for reliable handoff of on-going calls, good call blocking probability for new call requests, while maintaining bandwidth utilization high.     

Virtual base stations for wireless mobile ad hoc communications: an infrastructure for the infrastructure‐less

In this paper, we propose a new protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc networks, which establishes a dynamic wireless mobile infrastructure. The proposed protocol, namely, the virtual base stations (VBS) protocol, mimics and maintains the operation of the conventional fixed infrastructure in cellular networks. In the VBS protocol, a mobile node is elected from a set of nominees to act as a temporary base station within its zone. We provide proofs for the correctness of the VBS protocol, and show lower and upper bounds for its global convergence time. Likewise, we study the characteristics and performance of VBS by means of simulation. It is shown that VBS scales well to large networks of mobile stations, and that it outperforms other infrastructure‐formation protocols in terms of stability. The VBS protocol would facilitate the development of a comprehensive and promising framework for quality of service (QoS) management in wireless mobile ad hoc networks once the proper integration of the MAC protocol with the routing and call admission control mechanisms is established. The VBS architecture lays the groundwork for assigning bandwidth, and/or implementing priorities, and hence for QoS‐based routing by conveying the quality of a path prior to call setup. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS Provisioning in Wireless/Mobile Multimedia Networks Using an Adaptive Framework

Recently there is a growing interest in the adaptive multimedia networking where the bandwidth of an ongoing multimedia call can be dynamically adjusted. In the wireless/mobile multimedia networks using the adaptive framework, the existing QoS provisioning focused on the call blocking probability and the forced termination probability should be modified. We, therefore, redefine a QoS parameter – the cell overload probability – from the viewpoint of the adaptive multimedia networking. Then, we propose a distributed call admission control (CAC) algorithm that guarantees the upper bound of the cell overload probability. Also, a bandwidth adaptation algorithm which seeks to minimize the cell overload probability is also presented. Simulation experiments are carried out to verify the performance of the proposed CAC algorithm. Furthermore, the performance of the adaptive wireless/mobile network is compared to that of the existing non-adaptive wireless/mobile networks. As a further step in QoS provisioning, we propose another QoS parameter, the degradation period ratio, and discuss analytically how the CAC algorithm guarantees the upper bound of the degradation period ratio.     

IPv6-based dynamic coordinated call admission control mechanism over integrated wireless networks

Many wireless access systems have been developed recently to support users mobility and ubiquitous communication. Nevertheless, these systems always work independently and cannot simultaneously serve users properly. In this paper, we aim to integrate IPv6-based wireless access systems and propose a coordinated call admission control mechanism to utilize the total bandwidth of these systems to minimize the call blocking probabilities, especially the handoff call dropping probabilities. First, we propose an integrated hierarchical wireless architecture over IPv6-based networks to combine the wireless access systems including cellular systems (second-generation, General Packet Radio Service, or third-generation), IEEE 802.11 a/b/g WLAN, and Bluetooth. In the proposed architecture, mobile user can request a call with quality-of-service (QoS) requirements by any wireless network interfaces that can be accessed. When the proposed coordinated call admission control (CCAC) mechanism receives a request, it takes the QoS requirements of the incoming call and the available and reserved bandwidth of this wireless system into consideration to accept or reject this request. Besides, the mechanism can coordinate with other wireless systems dynamically to adjust the bandwidth reserved for handoff calls at each wireless system in this architecture so as to reduce the call blocking probabilities. Once the call is admitted, the mobile user is able to access heterogeneous wireless access networks via multiple interfaces simultaneously. Finally, we evaluate this system to show that the CCAC on the proposed architecture outperforms other mechanisms proposed before.     

Dynamic bandwidth management in IEEE 802.11-based multihop wireless networks

In this paper, we propose a new protocol named dynamic regulation of best-effort traffic (DRBT) which supports quality of service (QoS) throughput guarantees and provides a distributed regulation mechanism for best-effort traffic in multihop wireless networks. By adapting dynamically the rate of best-effort traffic at the link layer, DRBT increases the acceptance ratio of QoS flows and provides a good use of the remaining resources through the network. Our protocol also provides an accurate method to evaluate the available bandwidth in IEEE 802.11-based ad hoc networks which is able to differentiate QoS applications from best-effort traffic. Through extensive simulations, we compare the performance of our proposal scheme with some others protocols like QoS protocol for ad hoc real-time traffic for instance.     

Distributed call admission control in mobile/wireless networks

The major focus of this paper is distributed call admission control in mobile/wireless networks, the purpose of which is to limit the call handoff dropping probability in loss systems or the cell overload probability in lossless systems. Handoff dropping or cell overload are consequences of congestion in wireless networks. Our call admission control algorithm takes into consideration the number of calls in adjacent cells, in addition to the number of calls in the cell where a new call request is made, in order to make a call admission decision. This is done by every base station in a distributed manner without the involvement of the network call processor. The admission condition is simple enough that the admission decision can be made in real time. Furthermore, we show that our distributed call admission control scheme limits the handoff dropping or the cell overload probability to a predefined level almost independent of load conditions. This is an important requirement of future wireless/mobile networks with quality-of-service (QoS) provisioning     

A Packet Scheduling Approach to QoS Support in Multihop Wireless Networks

Providing packet-level quality of service (QoS) is critical to support both rate-sensitive and delay-sensitive applications in bandwidth-constrained, shared-channel, multihop wireless networks. Packet scheduling has been a very popular paradigm to ensure minimum throughput and bounded delay access for packet flows. This work describes a packet scheduling approach to QoS provisioning in multihop wireless networks. Besides minimum throughput and delay bounds for each flow, our scheduling disciplines seek to achieve fair and maximum allocation of the shared wireless channel bandwidth. However, these two criteria can potentially be in conflict in a generic-topology multihop wireless network where a single logical channel is shared among multiple contending flows and spatial reuse of the channel bandwidth is possible. In this paper, we propose a new scheduling model that addresses this conflict. The main results of this paper are the following: (a) a two-tier service model that provides a minimum fair allocation of the channel bandwidth for each packet flow and additionally maximizes spatial reuse of bandwidth, (b) an ideal centralized packet scheduling algorithm that realizes the above service model, and (c) a practical distributed backoff-based channel contention mechanism that approximates the ideal service within the framework of the CSMA/CA protocol.     

A comprehensive resource management framework for next generation wireless networks

We propose an integrated resource management approach that can be implemented in next generation wireless networks that support multimedia services (data, voice, video, etc.). Specifically, we combine the use of position-assisted and mobility predictive advanced bandwidth reservation with a call admission control and bandwidth reconfiguration strategy to support flexible QoS management. We also introduce a mobile agent based framework that can be used to carry out the functions of geolocation and of the proposed resource management in wireless networks. A model is also developed to obtain the optimal location information update interval in order to minimize the total cost of the system operation. The comparison of the achievable performance results of our proposed scheme with the corresponding results of a conventional system that supports advanced bandwidth reservation only, as means of supporting the QoS requirements, demonstrate that our integrated scheme can alleviate the problem of overreservation, support seamless operation throughout the wireless network, and increase significantly the system capacity.     

Efficient silence suppression and call admission control through contention-free medium access for VoIP in WiFi networks

In view of the rapidly growing trend of migrating customers from traditional wired phones to mobile phones and then to VoIP services in the recent past, there is a tremendous demand for wireless technologies to support VoIP, specially on WiFi technologies which have already matured commercially. This has put forth great research challenges in the area of wireless VoIP. In this article we have addressed two core issues, efficient silence suppression and call admission control, in QoS provisioning for VoIP services in WiFi networks. In this connection we present a QoS-aware wireless MAC protocol called hybrid contention-free access (H-CFA) and a VoIP call admission control technique called the traffic stream admission control (TS-AC) algorithm. The H-CFA protocol is based on a novel idea that combines two contention-free wireless medium access approaches, round-robin polling and TDMA-like time slot assignment, and provides substantial multiplexing capacity gain through silence suppression of voice calls. The TS-AC algorithm ensures efficient admission control for consistent delay bound guarantees and further maximizes the capacity through exploiting the voice characteristic so that it can tolerate some level of non-consecutive packet loss. We expose the benefits of our schemes through numerical results obtained from simulations.     

QM2RP: A QoS-Based Mobile Multicast Routing Protocol Using Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm

With the increasing demand for real-time services in next generation wireless networks, quality-of-service (QoS) based routing offers significant challenges. Multimedia applications, such as video conferencing or real-time streaming of stock quotes, require strict QoS guarantee on bandwidth and delay parameters while communicating among multiple hosts. These applications give rise to the need for efficient multicast routing protocols, which will be able to determine multicast routes that satisfy different QoS constraints simultaneously. However, designing such protocols for optimizing multiple objectives, is computationally intractable. Precisely, discovering optimal multicast routes is an NP-hard problem when the network state information is inaccurate – a common scenario in wireless networks. Based on the multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA), in this paper we propose a QoS-based mobile multicast routing protocol (QM²RP) that determines near-optimal routes on demand. Our protocol attempts to optimize multiple QoS parameters, namely end-to-end delay, bandwidth requirements, and residual bandwidth utilization. Furthermore, it is fast and efficient in tackling dynamic multicast group membership information arising due to user mobility in wireless cellular networks. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed protocol is capable of discovering a set of QoS-based, near-optimal multicast routes within a few iterations, even with imprecise network information. Among these routes one can choose the best possible one depending on the specified QoS requirements. The protocol is also scalable and yields lower multicast call-blocking rates for dynamic multicast group size in large networks.     

Perceptive admission control for wireless network quality of service

As wireless networks become more widely used, there is a growing need to support advanced services, such as multimedia streaming and voice over IP. Traditional approaches to guarantee quality of service (QoS) work well only with predictable channel and network access. In wireless mobile networks, where conditions dynamically change as nodes move about the network, a stateless, high level approach is required. Since shared wireless resources are easily over-utilized, the load in the network must be controlled so that an acceptable QoS for real-time applications can be maintained. If minimum real-time requirements are not met, these unusable packets waste scarce bandwidth and hinder other traffic, compounding the problem. To enable high QoS for all admitted traffic, we propose the Perceptive Admission Control (PAC) protocol. PAC monitors the wireless channel and dynamically adapts admission control decisions to enable high network utilization while preventing congestion. Through discussion, simulations and testbed experiments, we demonstrate that PAC ensures low packet loss and delay for all admitted flows.     

A QoS Routing Protocol with Bandwidth Allocation in Multichannel Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile multimedia applications have recently generated much interest in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) supporting quality-of-service (QoS) communications. Multiple non-interfering channels are available in 802.11 and 802.15 based wireless networks. Capacity of such channels can be combined to achieve higher QoS performance than for single channel networks. The capacity of MANETs can be substantially increased by equipping each network node with multiple interfaces that can operate on multiple non-overlapping channels. However, new scheduling, channel assignment, and routing protocols are required to utilize the increased bandwidth in multichannel MANETs. In this paper, we propose an on-demand routing protocol M-QoS-AODV in multichannel MANETs that incorporates a distributed channel assignment scheme and routing discovery process to support multimedia communication and to satisfy QoS bandwidth requirement. The proposed channel assignment scheme can efficiently express the channel usage and interference information within a certain range, which reduces interference and enhances channel reuse rate. This cross-layer design approach can significantly improve the performance of multichannel MANETs over existing routing algorithms. Simulation results show that the proposed M-QoS-AODV protocol can effectively increase throughput and reduce delay, as compared to AODV and M-AODV-R protocols.     

Route Stability Based QoS Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

To provide high quality communications service among mobile wireless devices is basically a challenging task in wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a Route Stability based QoS Routing (RSQR) protocol in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) which is an extension of QoS routing with throughput and delay constraints. Ensuring a data path to be valid for sufficiently longer period of time is a very difficult problem in MANET due to its highly dynamic nature. We propose a simple model for computing link stability and route stability based on received signal strengths. By including some extra fields in route request/reply packets, the route stability information can be utilized to select a route with higher stability among all the feasible routes between a given source destination pair. Further, inclusion of a signal strength based admission control enhances the performance of the routing. Results of our experiments show performance improvements in terms of packet delivery ratio, control overhead and average end-to-end delay in comparison with a QoS routing protocol proposed by Q. Xue and A. Ganz.     

Bandwidth borrowing‐based QoS approach for adaptive call admission control in multiclass traffic wireless cellular networks

This paper proposes a QoS approach for an adaptive call admission control (CAC) scheme for multiclass service wireless cellular networks. The QoS of the proposed CAC scheme is achieved through call bandwidth borrowing and call preemption techniques according to the priorities of the traffic classes, using complete sharing of the available bandwidth. The CAC scheme maintains QoS in each class to avoid performance deterioration through mechanisms for call bandwidth degradation, and call bandwidth upgrading based on min–max and max–min policies for fair resource deallocation and reallocation, respectively. The proposed adaptive CAC scheme utilizes a measurement‐based online monitoring approach of the system performance, and a prediction model to determine the amount of bandwidth to be borrowed from calls, or the amount of bandwidth to be returned to calls. The simulation‐based performance evaluation of the proposed adaptive CAC scheme shows the strength and effectiveness of our proposed scheme. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.